


Curiosity

by betweenfactandbreakfast



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: First Kiss, M/M, also horses, bisexual alistair heck yeah.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-14
Updated: 2015-02-14
Packaged: 2018-03-12 08:33:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3350234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/betweenfactandbreakfast/pseuds/betweenfactandbreakfast
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alistair reflects on his past with Zevran.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Curiosity

**Author's Note:**

> this zevistair fic has been in progress for a while now, glad to finally post it.

When Alistair had been a little boy, he’d had a friend, a stablehand in the employ of Arl Eamon. Juan was from Antiva- a tall lad, dark and handsome, with a certain cheeky charm about him that you couldn’t help but be drawn to. He was clever, as well, and had hands almost twice the size of Alistair’s even though he wasn’t a lot older. Horsemaster Dennet always said he “had a way” with the horses, and Alistair agreed. Sometimes, Juan let him help while he worked and gave him riding lessons- though Alistair was only allowed on a tired old nag called Jemima, and never Teagan’s barded charger or the Antivan palomino which was the exotic pride of the stables.

Still, Alistair liked to brandish a wooden stick from atop Jemima, pretending to be a knight, or a Chevalier from the stories. Juan would keep a watchful eye from the side of the paddock as Jemima plodded along and Alistair imagined himself taller and stronger and braver. Juan never told him that he wasn’t.

Alistair used to peek through a hole in the stable wall, whenever Teagan donned his armour and Juan adjusted the saddle on the charger- named Calenhad, like the king. Even though he knew Calenhad was his ancestor, Alistair was still scared of the horse a little bit- he was enormous (seventeen hands, but were those Alistair’s hands or Juan’s?), knotted with muscle, with a wild fury in his eyes and a habit of snorting disdainfully whenever Alistair passed by. Teagan was good at riding him, even with armour and his real sword. Alistair imagined his uncle riding Calenhad into battle someday, galloping up the rocky slopes of Redcliffe to join the king’s army. Alistair wondered if there was any chance he could ride with him. Perhaps not a horse quite like Calenhad, but maybe the Amaranthine mare. Hopefully not Jemima.

Juan’s favourite horse was the Antivan palomino. He said Antivan  _caballeros_  all rode their horses this special way, called ‘ _Jimeta_ ’, where the horses almost seemed to dance like their feet were sticking to the ground. It took years to learn. Teagan rode the palomino sometimes, but the horse didn’t seem to like anyone but Juan.

* * *

Since Juan was so good at his job, he could get away with a lot of stuff that Alistair couldn’t, even though he was the Arl’s nephew. On many occasions Alistair overheard Stablemaster Dennet chastising his friend for some reason or another. He’d stolen Isolde’s favourite jam tarts from the kitchen (something Alistair would have got the belt for), or been sleeping on the job. Once he was rebuked for “spending time with a serving boy”, to Alistair’s confusion. The serving boy had been dismissed, but Alistair didn’t understand what was so wrong about spending time with a friend.

“Why was your friend sacked?” He asked carefully afterwards. He could tell Juan was in a bad mood, because his hay-shovelling was more aggressive than usual.

“Because.” Juan replied, stabbing the pitchfork forward violently. “These Fereldans, they are much too uptight for their own good. “

Alistair frowned, kicking his foot across the packed dirt. Juan always said things about Fereldans like that, but he usually didn’t mean Alistair. “But what were you doing with him that was so bad?”

Juan stopped shovelling, leaned on his pitchfork and turned to Alistair, a scowl written on his face. “Nothing! Nothing bad.” He insisted.

“Then why was he sacked?”

Juan sighed, looked down at the ground. “I was- we were kissing.”

Alistair, taken aback, scrunched up his face. He was still at that age where kissing was for girls and grown-ups and of absolutely no interest to him. “So they sacked him?”

“Yes, those  _cabrones_  sacked him.” Said Juan bitterly. “Because he was a boy and so am I.”

Alistair thought about that, a boy and a boy kissing. All the stories he’d read were always about a girl and a boy kissing. If Alistair imagined himself kissing someone, it would probably be a girl. A princess, maybe. In a tower, where he had to fight a dragon or an ogre to save her. But boys kissing didn’t seem particularly strange. Certainly no reason to sack someone.

“What do you think about that?” Asked Juan, a bit nervously.

“Um,” Alistair frowned thoughtfully. People didn’t generally ask for his opinion, so now that he had to give it he was a bit at a loss. He answered slowly, carefully: “I think it’s alright. I don’t know why they sacked him. I wish they hadn’t.”

Juan made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob. “You’re a good boy, Ali.” He hugged him tightly, ruffling his hair like he always did.

* * *

Isolde, Arl Eamon’s wife, liked to wear red and disliked Alistair. He remembered trying to call her ‘mum’ once, and she’d turned pink and pinched and quiet and sent him outside. She was the one who made Alistair sleep in the stables with the dogs. The angriest Alistair had ever seen her was when he’d knocked over and broken a vase by accident. The saddest he’d ever seen her was when he was chasing a mouser through the pantry and found her sitting near a cask of wine, sobbing uncontrollably. She must have been too sad to send Alistair away like usual, or maybe she just needed company, but he ended up sitting cross-legged by her side, listening to her outpouring of grief. He didn’t understand a lot of it, because her accent was even thicker than Juan’s was and she was crying a lot, but he did gather that she was sad because she and Arl Eamon couldn’t have a baby. By this point Alistair had figured out how babies were made, but he didn’t know the specifics and didn’t really want to.  Still, he listened politely.

Later, Isolde acted as if their encounter in the cellars had never happened, and in fact seemed to be angrier towards Alistair than usual.  He asked Arl Eamon about it but the Arl didn’t really answer. He asked Juan and the stablehand said “Sometimes people don’t like others seeing them when they’re weak.” Alistair thought that was very wise.

* * *

When Alistair was ten, for his birthday Juan finally let him try a different horse- the Amaranthine mare. She was a lot bigger than Jemima, and a lot more energetic, but Alistair handled her fine. They had to do it at night when nobody could see them. Juan, who was now thirteen, confessed he did a lot of riding at night when he wasn’t supposed to. He said it was peaceful, that you could see all the stars and everything. Although tonight was cloudy, sky swollen with the promise of rain. Sure enough, after a while it began to pour torrentially, and they had to put the mare away. They were both soaking wet by the time they reached the stables, and giggling like madmen. Alistair helped him hang the saddle to dry, and then they looked at each other. Alistair had been growing a lot recently, and now his hands were almost the same size as Juan’s.

Before he knew what he was doing, Alistair leant forward and kissed Juan on the lips. It wasn’t a long kiss by any means, but it was nice and warm and kind of wet from the rain.

When he pulled back Juan was looking at him very strangely, but said absolutely nothing. Alistair did not know what to say either. He had never kissed anyone before, he had no idea what was expected. Juan just smiled at him, a little sadly, and said “goodnight”, before he went back to his room in the servant’s quarters.

It was only a week after that when Isolde finally convinced Eamon to send him away. And then he was gone, torn away by strange helmeted men and a stern women in Chantry robes, leaving behind a shattered amulet but nothing else of consequence.

* * *

“You know, I knew an Antivan once,” Alistair said, watching Zevran sharpen his dagger.  Night was beginning to fall over the camp, but orange light still filtered through the surrounding treetops. The two men were sharing watch that night, resting side by side against a fallen tree trunk.

“Is that so?” The elf quirked an eyebrow, but didn’t look away from his task.

“A stablehand. Juan.”

“Ah-  _Juan!_  Dear Juanito. I know him.”

“You do?”

“No, of course I don’t.” Zevran said, with a snort of laughter.

Alistair felt foolish. There was more he wanted to say, something else he wished he could discuss with Zevran- but getting the words out right was difficult.

Zevran, obviously sensing that Alistair was troubled, put down the dagger and the whetstone and twisted to face him. “What is it?” He said.

“Nothing.”

Zevran gave him a look that clearly spelled out his disbelief.

“Alright, well, not  _exactly_  nothing.”

“I knew it! You are an open book, my friend.”

Alistair scowled. “Juan was- he liked-“

Zevran was not taking him seriously, Alistair could tell from the way he regarded him- all amused impatience. And that made the words even more difficult to say.

“He liked…?” Said the Antivan in that irritating tone that was just mocking enough to constitute mockery.

“Men.”

Zevran’s face split into a wide, mischievous grin that made Alistair regret ever broaching the subject.

“Is that so?” He purred, and if Alistair hadn’t been so focused on looking manly and stoic at that moment, burying his face in his hands might’ve been tempting.

“It is.” Alistair said, crossing his arms over his chest self-consciously.

Zevran appraised him thoughtfully. “So what does the princeling think of that?”

“Don’t call me that. And I don’t think anything. Of that, I mean.”

“You must have an opinion about it.” Zevran said, leaning forward intently. “Everybody does. Tell me, does it excite you? Intrigue you? Disgust you?”

“It- I don’t know, why does it have to do anything?” Alistair said. He could smell those damned scented oils the elf bathed himself in. “It’s alright, I suppose. I don’t have a problem with it.”

“Hmm.” Zevran said, sounding like he didn’t quite believe it. “You must be at the very least curious, to bring it up so heavy-handedly.”

“It was not heavy-handed!”

Zevran patted his arm comfortingly. “My dear man, your hand couldn’t have been heavier if you had coated it in lead.”

“Well,” Alistair began carefully. He wanted to stop talking, but backing out now would be worse than continuing, so he plunged on. “What if I  _was_  a little curious? What then?”

Zevran laughed softly, reached out to trace Alistair’s jawline with a finger. “Why, then,” He said, almost a whisper.  “I’d do this.” And before Alistair was quite aware of what was happening, he’d leant forward and kissed Alistair.  

It was quite unlike Alistair’s hazy memories of that first kiss with Juan, or the subsequent ones as a youth with Chantry girls- kisses that were mostly slobbery and uncomfortable. Alistair might not have believed before then that ‘kissing’ was a skill worthy of note, but the undeniable fact was that Zevran was _good_  at it, lips moving against his almost exquisitely, slowly, hands roaming down his neck to his shoulders, chest, stomach, promising to go lower still. And Alistair found himself for one mad moment  _wanting_  that.

He let out a little noise he hadn’t heard himself make before, and felt Zevran’s lips quirk against his. His teeth tugged at Alistair’s lower lip, and then Zevran pulled away.

There was a loaded silence in which Zevran folded his arms behind his head self-satisfactorily and Alistair looked at his hands awkwardly.

“So,” Zevran said, regarding him out of the corner of his eye. “Are you likely to be…. curious again anytime soon?”

Alistair thought about it. “You know? I think I might be.”


End file.
